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Dependable Arch Sky

#88cae5
Notes

Dependable Arch Sky (#88CAE5) is a soft cyan with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (197°, 64%, 72%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#88cae5
RGB
rgb(136, 202, 229)
HSL
hsl(197, 64%, 72%)
HWB
hwb(197 53% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(80.4% 0.077 225.6)
P3
color(display-p3 0.5903 0.7853 0.8862)
HSV
hsv(197, 41%, 90%)
LAB
lab(77.95% -14.08 -19.96)
LCH
lch(77.95% 24.43 234.80)
CMYK
cmyk(41%, 12%, 0%, 10%)

Etymology

Dependable
adjective

Latin dē-pendere, to hang from — adjectival suffix -able. As a color modifier, dependable implies a clear-and-trustworthy-and-consistent quality where the hue carries the visual register of consistently-performing-and-counted-on design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to reliable and trustworthy in usage.

Arch
modifier

Latin arcus, bow / curve. As a color modifier, arch implies a Roman-and-Gothic-and-Romanesque-vault quality, the visual register of Roman-aqueduct-and-Romanesque-cathedral hand-cut stone-and-brick voussoir-and-keystone arch-and-vault architectural surfaces under monumental architecture light. Sits at the modifier-and-architecture end of the grid, parallel to dome and vault in usage.

Sky
noun

The blue of a clear sky at noon — produced by Rayleigh scattering, the preferential dispersion of shorter wavelengths through atmospheric molecules. Air itself is colorless; the color we see is sunlight scattered toward our eyes by every cubic kilometer above. The reference shade is mid-latitude noon under a high pressure system: a clean, slightly green-shifted blue with the luminous depth of light scattered across an entire hemisphere of air.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#88cae5
Original
#bbc7e6
Protanopia
#adbce5
Deuteranopia
#63d2d2
Tritanopia
#bebebe
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon White
1.81:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
11.63:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##88CAE5
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.5903 0.7853 0.8862)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.077

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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Canvas